THE SILVER ARROW DYNASTY First coined by a German radio broadcaster in 1932 to describe the sleek aluminum-bodied Mercedes-Benz SSKL racecar, the term Silver Arrow soon became synonymous with Stuttgart’s finest racing machines, truly coming into vogue during the late 1930s when factory drivers Rudolf Caracciola and Hemann Lang dominated the field with their supercharged W125 grand prix cars.

In the 1950s, the term was resuscitated to describe Mercedes’ mighty W196 Formula One cars and the corresponding 300 SLR racecars, which were piloted to unmitigated success by the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio and Sir Stirling Moss.

Fangio took commanding Formula One Drivers’ Championships in the Silver Arrows in 1954 and 1955, and who knows how long the cars would have dominated had not the disastrous accident at Le Mans in 1955 prompted Mercedes-Benz to withdraw from factory-based racing.

The significance of these cars has been confirmed in more recent years by their appreciation among collecto...